Now would be a good time for Pakatan Rakyat to start asking voters ahead of GE13 what issues most concern them.
The overwhelming majority will nominate the economy, given the importance it has to all our futures and the way our nation is bucking global conditions. Some will say the reform of our public institutions matters to them, others will say the battle against corruption, or education. Few will probably mention any issue as pedestrian as transport policy. It exists as one of those topics that is important to our everyday lives but not intertwined with our hopes and aspirations.
So given that transport is a backburner issue ahead of GE13, it is amazing just how much trouble Pakatan Rakyat is in having made its first tentative pronouncements on the topic.
It started with PKR Strategic Director Rafizi Ramli unveiling a lavish pledge to axe vehicle excise. This immediately came back to haunt him when he was called to account on the details because he didn’t have any. All he offered was a headline figure of RM8 billion which he promised the rakyat was “affordable.”
That makes two successive transport policies that have not survived even basic scrutiny. The other was a pledge to axe road tolls even though they play a vital role in paying for the construction of new roads.
Given both of these misguided forays into the transport portfolio, one might have hoped that Pakatan Rakyat would immediately retreat into its bunker to formulate a proper, fully-costed policy before uttering another word on the matter.
But it was not to be. The man who wants to be ‘Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’ has now been caught out trying to make things right on Rafizi’s announcement and in the process, he is making things worse.
First off he has immediately qualified Rafizi’s initial promise saying rather than axe vehicle excise, it will in fact, now be phased out over five years.
This is a major climb-down on what was less than two weeks ago a sweeping policy initiative. Those who had hoped to be buying a cheaper car next year can think again. Anwar has been forced to stage a policy back-down before Pakatan Rakyat has unveiled any written policies.
Anwar’s official reason for the change is that to suddenly axe excise would massively devalue the existing vehicle fleet. In other words, your family car would be worth less the second this policy took effect.
That might be true in part, but the real reason is that Anwar and his policy team (if he has one) have done what they should have done before Rafizi went public. They have started to think about the consequences of the initial rash promise the nation can ill-afford.
So a simple promise has led Pakatan into a dead-end street on transport policy and it doesn’t end there.
Anwar has now been forced to state Pakatan’s commitment to public transport faced with accusations that his pledge to make driving cheaper will add to our growing traffic jams as thousands more take to the roads.
And what of carbon emissions? Malaysia has pledged to reduce carbon output by 40 per cent by the year 2020 and vehicles are the biggest single source. It is where policies and our global commitments intersect that Government becomes complicated and these are also things Pakatan Rakyat has not thought through.
But back to public transport. Anwar’s promise was: “PKR aims to have a public transport system that is the most efficient in the Southeast Asian region within 10 years.”
Again, a bold promise but hardly a policy.
Luckily for Anwar, transport still won’t be the defining issue at GE13, despite Pakatan’s attempts to put it into our minds by muddling their way through these initiatives.
The fact is private cars are a symbol of our wealth. We have grown in love with them as our nation has grown and inevitably, this growth has come at a far greater pace than other infrastructure such as railways.
There might come a day when busy people zip between KL and Singapore on high speed rail at 300km/h – this is planned by the present Government. But until then what is required are proper initiatives that are the product of consultation and careful formulation, not the quick fix ideas Pakatan Rakyat is opting for in its quest for votes.